Whats the difference between Current and Available Balance ?

Andy and I were having a conversation with a group that we are working with on a new project. When discussing integration to our API, transactional sets and fields within them. One of them asked the following question:

In the Balance Response message that you send us, can you tell me the difference between the “AvailableBalance” field and the “CurrentBalance” field?﻿

Our response:

Current balance is the real, financial balance.Available balance is the current balance minus any holds.On the open loop side…An auth does a hold – it affects only available.

A completion releases the hold and decrements both the available and current by the final transaction amount.﻿